Improvement in compositions for filling teeth



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

A. HILL AND S. G. BLACKMAN, OF NORWALK, CONNECTICUT.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 6,110, dated February 13, 1849.

To all whom it may concern: 7

Be it known that we, ASA HILL and SAM- UEL G. BLAGKMAN, both of Norwalk, Fairfield county, Connecticut, have invented, discovered, and produced a new and valuable Compound Substance for Stopping or Filling Carious, Hollow, and Defective Teeth, which may be made of sufficicnt hardness to answer all the purposes of a permanent filling, with the advantage of being easily applied, filling the cavity with great uniformity, and forming a compact mass with the tooth with scarcely a possibilityof getting removed.

This article is made by taking the guttapercha of commerce, freeing it from its impurities and coloring-matter by boiling and working it or by maceration, and combining with it, when sufficiently heated with adry heat to render it plastic, about two parts quicklime and one part each of quartz and feldspar, all reduced to an impalpable powder.

The gutta-percha in its natural state has too much tenacity and too little hardness and consistency, and has not a proper color. The addition of these materials deprives it of its excess of tenacity, gives it greater hardness and consistency, and ordinarily the proper color. The same effect may be produced in a greater or less degree by any other earthy, mineral, or metallic substance.

The article may be varied in color by the addition of any of the other earths, or in color and slightly in hardness by adding the filings of any of the metals used in filling teeth. A similar article may be made by using, instead of the three articles enumerated=.-=viz., lime,

quartz, and feldsparany of the earthy, mineral, or metallic substances known, which will shorten and harden the base and give the proper color. We have used them all, and in various combinations and proportions, but think the combination above named makes the cheapest and best article. It is entirely innoxious, becomes plastic at a moderate heat, hardens again when applied, and when reduced to the heat of the body adheres firmly to the cavity, and is sufficicutly hard and permanent for matiscation.

We do not claim as our invention and discovery the application of gutta-percha alone to the stopping and filling of carious teeth, although we are not aware that it was ever so used until we commenced using it; but

What we do claim is- The combination of gutta-percha, as a base, with such other mineral, earthy, and metallic substances as will make such a compound of such, a character and adapted to such purposes as we have describedviz., its combination with such of those substances as will shorten it and render it less tenacious, harden Witnesses:

JOSIAH M. CARTER, CHARLES E. DIsBRoWo 

